After serving as a top patent judge with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Trenton Ward has returned to Atlanta, joining intellectual property firm Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner as a partner.

Ward headed for Washington in 2012, where he spent five years as a lead administrative patent judge for the USPTO’s newly formed Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Before that, he was a partner at Troutman Sanders, where he’d worked since 2003.